#just feeling sorry for myself and having an existential crisis because a horse race is on TV
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
slickshoesareyoucrazy · 2 years ago
Text
That Stephen Foster Song
Today was just another day for me, but the first Saturday in May didn't used to be just any other day. It used to be a big deal.
I'm a Kentucky girl, and my dad arguably has a gambling problem, so I grew up thinking Derby Day was observed everywhere the same way it was in my family. I've been to three Derbys, all with my dad. It's fucking expensive to get in, so every time we went, it was a big deal that we did (and we got general infield admission; which means...you can't sit down unless it's on the ground. I'm not sure you're even allowed to carry a lawn chair in anymore). I used to bet horses every year when I became an adult and I've won a couple times. (My latest win was I'll Have Another, so it's been a while). And I used to have a party for a few years in a row when our son was little. Friends came over. We ate traditional Kentucky food (Benedictine finger sandwiches; fried chicken and waffles; burgoo; bluegrass salad; mini hot browns; Derby pie and Kentucky Silk pie...I made bourbon slushes instead of mint juleps though because mint juleps are gross in my opinion). I cried when the band played My Old Kentucky Home. The Derby is a complex mash of pieces of me and my relationship with my dad and my sense of home and my childhood. Sports in general, and this day and event in particular have historically been a way I could more easily than normal connect with other people; they are relatively safe and fun and happy pieces of myself I could share with other people.
But then in 2017, the friends stopped coming. Magically, all these people who clearly associated me with the Derby and knew I was having a party...people who never even knew it was Derby Day before I started having the parties...all of them to a person had something else come up on the first Saturday in May. After I'd already bought food and stuff (J and I aren't drinkers, and I still have that bottle of bourbon in our cabinet. It's not collecting dust because it's in a cabinet, but you get the picture). Something about me had turned the day, the event, disposable and forgettable in the year between May Saturdays. J took us to an amusement park that first year. To take my mind off of the social event I wasn't having. I haven't even attempted to be social for the Derby since, but 2 years ago, I long distance watched the race with a new friend who'd never watched before. I thought maybe I was connecting with someone over this day again; sharing a piece of myself. That maybe it could be something that we could share together; something that would make her think of me.
But it didn't. No one has reached out to me today; they probably don't even realize or remember it's Derby Day. This isn't a day that makes people think of me. I asked my son if he remembered how to play My Old Kentucky Home when we were out walking the dog this morning, and he said not by heart, but he could still read the music, probably. (He used to be able to play without music on the piano and the violin). And then he casually said he just didn't want to try though. I know he didn't mean to sound callous or make me feel shitty and dismissed by saying that, but he did.
I'd like to say I'm not feeling socially anxious and sad right now. I'd like to say I can overlook all the nostalgia and pain and memory and complication attached to this event and day and enjoy it. Or I'd even like to say I don't care that it's Derby Day anymore. But honestly, none of that's true. The truth is I'm watching it, because I can't not care, and I'm thinking about just how forgettable and easily dismissed I seem to be to nearly everyone who's met me in person. Including maybe even my kid. A worldwide spectacle that happens on the same basic day every year doesn't even drive a quick, 'Hey, what's up?' text.
I won't cry this year when I hear that Stephen Foster song. Maybe I'm starting to forget and dismiss myself.
2 notes · View notes
balarsen22 · 7 years ago
Text
I see J tomorrow! its been almost a month since our last session. I’ve missed her so much. I decided to write her a letter to tell her whats all been going on in my life. Its the longest thing I’ve ever written that I plan  to read to her:
I don’t want to bombard you with a month’s worth of struggles all at once when you’re just returning from vacation so I’m going to start with some positives. There have been good things that happened too and I did have some okay days, and even had a really good day during the last month. I got into an IP group at CSU thats on tuesdays from 3-4:30 that starts this week. the other day Dr Yap asked if there’s any way they could convince me to become a radiologist after I took some especially well positioned rads on the biggest dog I’ve ever seen- I laughed and said I prefer to live in the land of color, but it was a really good compliment. I started cross fit and it’s going to be really good for me I think- the intro classes have been good so far, and I have still been able to do stuff since breaking my hand with some adaptations. my thumb and pointer finger are going to be strong as fuck by the time this is healed. I have gotten to know Colton, the equine imaging intern, a lot more between doing the equine imaging independent study and him being in the cross-fit class, which is good. I really like him a lot and part of me hopes that maybe we’ll become more than friends, but I highly doubt he’d feel the same way. being just friends is always good too. And I got some good news after being really worried about Jake, because she’s increased her water intake quite a bit and wet her bed last week, and she’s woke me up a few times to let her go out to pee in the middle of the night. all the labs came back as normal so far, apart from her usg being a little low, but its not renal failure low. we did an abdominal ultrasound on her, and her kidneys and everything else is normal apart from a small nodule in her spleen that is most likely artifact, and we did chest rads too so we could get a baseline. everything was normal, and since she’s healthy apart from drinking and peeing a lot, i’m not going to keep putting her through tests and procedures. so I’ll just keep an eye on it and I’ll bring her in for a recheck if things continue to progress. Breaking my hand is giving me excellent practice using my left hand, which will make me a better surgeon. I used a lot of coping skills this last month, and have listened to 4 audiobooks. My new roommate Christine moved in this last weekend, i think she’s a really good fit- she had moved all her stuff here using a horse trailer, so I think she’ll fit in just fine. Life went on, and I have continued to break my personal record for consecutive days I stayed alive, and have survived 100% of my worst days, and all those other uplifting sayings. 
Seeing Jeff went okay, but I don’t really trust him and he just doesn’t know me. I didn’t seem to be on the same page as him a lot of the time. And I’m still very afraid of talking about how dark my mind can get when it comes to being back at the CSU counseling center. During our first session I pointed out that I didn’t know what all he knew about me because I didn’t really know how much you filled him in on, so he told me an overview of what you had told him, and that he had heard of me back when i was in iTeam. It was really surprising and embarrassing and it brought up so much shame. i always cringe internally when i think about how crazy and stupid I have been in the past, especially when i think about my sophomore year of undergrad. I tried to move past the shame though and be honest with Jeff during our 3 sessions, and he did have some good ideas. we talked some about how to improve the relationship between you and I, and how I can start to regain your trust. I think the only way I can do that is to continue to be honest and work hard in therapy, and behave myself outside of the office. And if I want to lie to you about something, I tell you I want to lie instead of lying. I don't really know if there's anything else I can do. He suggested maybe figuring out a way to allow you to verify things, like how when people cheat in relationships they give their partner full access to their phone, but I don't know how that would work in here. I mean, Im willing to be held accountable to things by allowing you to ask people to verify things if you want, but i highly doubt you want to. But if you do I’ll sign the forms. Jeff suggested that because I end up lying when I try to explain why I’m feeling something, I should just state what I’m feeling or what I felt. I've really struggled to deal with how alone I feel. It feels like you're the only person that I don't have to hide anything from. I tried hard with Jeff, but I definitely was much more cautious about my words and the topics we talked about and tried really hard not to say anything that might cause alarm, especially after getting asked for awhile about the suicidal thoughts because I marked them on the form (even though I downplayed how frequently I’ve been having them on the form). I guess I wanted to avoid allowing myself to get attention for how much I was struggling so I tried to downplay things a bit. I didn’t consider it to be lying, but now that I’m writing about it I realize I wasn’t being completely open and honest about how I was actually doing and technically that is lying by omission. God damn it. I really didn’t mean to lie to him, I just didn’t want to draw attention to how much I was struggling because I didn’t want to be attention seeking. god fucking damn it. Its been a really rough couple of weeks for me mentally and emotionally, and i guess physically too. I’ve been feeling really low and just don’t have any interest in anything. I wake up feeling hollow and numb and empty and disappointed that I didn't die in my sleep, and as the day goes on I transition to feeling like I have a heavy weight on my chest, and I end up with a lump in my throat, and it gets hard to breathe and my entire body feels heavy. It gets to the point that its painful. I feel like I’m drowning and it feels like I’m going to cry but I never do. I seem to drift to the idea of suicide all day long, but I felt that I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I can see that people would be affected by my death, but in my opinion it wouldn’t last for long. I would just turn into a memory, life would go on. Yeah it would hurt initially, but I feel like I wouldn’t be a huge loss in people’s lives. It’s not like I’m anyone’s first choice, or second choice, or even third. the pain would come up occasionally at like holidays or something, but they’d be okay. I feel like o one actually needs me in their lives. I’m just a background character and easily replaceable. I feel like I’m not enough for anyone, and I never actually will be no matter how hard I try. And it seems like the harder I fight it the tighter it holds onto me. I've been fighting a lot with the idea that I don’t know if the fact that I struggled so much was directly related to you being gone, or if it was more how I subconsciously believed I should feel with you gone. over Labor day weekend I got high, and for some reason I got racing thoughts about this stuff. I haven’t gotten high since. While high I got the idea to name my factitious disorder “Effy” because it sounds like F-D, similar to how people call their eating disorders “Ed” to separate the eating disorder from themselves. I started to get racing thoughts and wrote down the narrative of exactly what was going on in my head if you want to hear it, but it started out with the idea of “Do I have factitious disorder and do my urges get worse because of my combined depression and anxiety personality disorders acting up? or has effy been causing them all along? What if the only reason I'm depressed to begin with is just for attention. It's like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg?” I struggled with a lot of other similar concepts too- even to the point that if this existential crisis and philosophical moment was because of the weed, or just because its something that I know can happen with it. But basically everything comes back to "is this how I really feel? or is this just how Effy thinks I should feel?". the thought has really stuck with me and I'm really confused about it. I tried bringing it up with Jeff, and he said that either way I still feel the way I feel no matter what the cause is. it didn’t really help because I would use different coping skills or treat myself differently depending on the cause, and I probably would’ve been more open about how shitty I felt like I was doing if I had known it wasn’t just for attention., but i guess either way I feel like shit and I’ve been wanting more and more to give up and die. I kept trying to remind myself that I don’t have to be worse for you to care about me and to make you believe that I need help and I need you, and that I don’t have to show you how much you help me and how much I rely on you by completely falling apart without you, and that I don’t have to be worse to make sure you don’t abandon me or anything like that. but it never really changed how much I'm struggling. So maybe what I'm feeling is real, I'm not sure. It probably made me use skills more at least since I was trying to avoid doing something for attention, but they didn’t seem to help much either. Well, I guess they help in that they're keeping me safe and I haven't ended up needing to go to the ER or anything, but they never really made me feel any better. And even with them I still slipped up and cut twice on 2 particularly bad days, and I’m really sorry. 
I’ve been leaning more towards not reaching out to people at all in case its just the factitious part of me doing it for attention. I’ve been trying to avoid getting extra attention as much as I can. Your absence has really made me realize that you’re the only person I feel like I can actually talk to. Apart from you, I don’t really have anyone to talk about the heavy stuff with right now anyways. There was one day early on when you were gone that I was really struggling, and my mom had happened to call, and I tried reaching out to her but i guess it was more in a way of testing the waters. I brought up how much I dislike school right now and how burned out I feel, and she just said that she’s sure I’ll bounce back soon and just brushed it off. I didn’t try to talk to her about anything else. I went to dinner one night with Megan and Shannon and Cameron for Megan’s birthday on a particularly bad head day, but that left me feeling even worse. had it been anyone besides megan I wouldn’t have gone, but I’m trying so hard to repair that friendship so I forced myself to go. I was with the people I used to consider to be my best friends, but I felt completely alone the entire time. All I could think about was how I wanted so badly to go home and die. How I wanted to find a gun and shoot myself. I did my best to engage in conversation and pay attention, but i felt so alone it hurt. When they finally decided to leave for the bars and I went home, I stopped on impulse and picked up some blades on my way. I cut when I got home. I felt really guilty and ashamed about it afterwards, and but in my head all I could think was that its better to cut than to end up in the ER on a psych hold. The next day I realized how fucked up my reasoning had been and I felt even worse about it, and then to add to it I started to think about how angry you were going to be with me for it. The whole situation with taking a big step back from Megan has been really hard for me. I realized a few days after our last session that even though I thought I could logically think it through, my emotions were still very black and white and I was reacting like our friendship completely ended, when in reality our friendship has been given a second chance. It still feels really devastating and I still get engulfed with feeling abandoned and with self hate and self blame, but  I try to remind myself that she's just taking a step back, not telling me to get out of her life for good and to never speak to her again. It’s been really difficult for me though, and for the most part I’ve been avoiding her. I did try to see if Megan wanted to take the dogs on a walk on saturday morning this last weekend, and when she finally texted me back 2 days later she said sure and that she’d text me when she was up, which would probably be around 9am. on saturday morning I waited, and waited, and she finally texted me around 11:30 that she was up. by the time we met up at the trail, it was already starting to sprinkle and was windy and a bit cold. she had brought cameron along too, which i guess is fine, she just hadn’t mentioned he was coming too and usually he doesn’t go with us. It felt like she didn’t want to be there and that she wanted to avoid being alone with me. Our conversation was light, talking about derby mainly and her dad who just came to town and how he’s doing, and work. Mainly she talked. but after a bit it began to rain harder, and we turned around. It was just a disappointment of a day. I was really hoping to get to spend some quality time with her, just the two of us having fun and working on rebuilding our friendship, and instead of that we walked dogs for about 30 minutes in the rain, after I was left hanging pretty much all morning and planning my day around us going. and on top of that the dogs barely got a walk because it was cold and rainy the rest of the day on top of that. its just frustrating and disappointing and it hurt. I feel like it was just a reminder of how unimportant I am to her now. lately I’ve also been trying to take a step back from hanging out and connecting with Shannon, mainly because she never wanted to or could when I asked and eventually I’ve stopped asking. A big part of me has been wondering if she’s avoiding me and secretly hates me or doesn’t want to be my friend, and I guess I’ve slowly been convincing myself thats the truth. but I also needed to get myself back to seeing her as just a friend and it was hard to do that and keep hanging out, so maybe its for the best. but whatever the cause is, we haven’t hung out just the 2 of us in about a month now. And I’ve been so down lately that i haven’t really gone ahead with hanging out with hurt or holly more. I know that isolating myself from people doesn’t really help, but it hurts less than feeling completely alone when I’m with the people i consider to be my friends. 
I also just don't have the energy or motivation to try right now- I’d rather just curl up and disappear these days. and there’s a part of me fuels that by rationalizing in my head that drifting away from people now means I won’t hurt as many people when I finally kill myself. I guess suicide has been on my mind a lot these days. I hate school right now, even though I should love it. I just don’t care anymore. I want to care, but I don’t have the energy or motivation. Vet med used to be the thing I was living for. And now its not. Now I’m living just to not cause more pain to people than I already have caused. I don’t enjoy anything anymore. If I wasn’t already $100grand in debt I would seriously consider dropping out. the thought has crossed my mind several times. I’ve been skipping class, and lately when I do go I’ll be trying to pay attention, and then all of a sudden there’s a heavy weight on my chest, a lump in my throat, and its hard to breathe. and I just want to leave. I want to go home and go hide. i don’t want to be in class. I don’t want to pay attention. I don’t want to go to work. i don’t want to have responsibilities. I don’t want to have commitments. I just want to go curl up with my dogs and fade away from the world. I care, but I don’t care anymore. at that point, I want to get drunk and kill myself. But all I can seem to do is sit there and stare at the wall in silence. I guess it's like a mental health equilibrium, that I want to do something destructive but my lack of energy and motivation prevents it. I sit there and fantasize about shooting myself, but I don’t want to bring it up to anyone because I feel like its just attention seeking. I start to think about ways I could get a gun, like to just go to the shooting range, rent a gun, and put a bullet straight through my brain. I imagine what it would feel like, to put the barrel to my temple. to curl my finger around the trigger and pull.  I start to think about writing a  goodbye letter, saying how sorry I am but I couldn’t handle it all anymore. but I don’t even know who I would leave it for anymore, and there’s not much else I would say in it but I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to keep going, and that I can’t keep living like this. When you’re drowning in the middle of an ocean with no land or boat in sight, I don’t want to learn to be okay with drowning. I want to get out of the water and onto a fucking boat, or let the end come quickly. because right now I’m out of energy and barely keeping afloat, and there’s no boats in sight. Maybe a boat will come or maybe I’m swimming towards shore, but maybe I’m not? or maybe I’m just too far and instead I’m going to get hypothermia and drown. I don’t want to be alive anymore. I want to stop this pain. I’m all choked up and I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel like I want to cry, but the tears don’t come. they never come. I sit there having a meltdown internally in the middle of the classroom, and eventually I’m able to tell myself that I shouldn’t be thinking of this stuff and that I need to pay attention to the task at hand and put the thoughts in container, but its like the container they go into is heavy and sits right on my chest. Even if I can stop the thoughts, the feelings don’t really go away. I go home for lunch every day now so I don't have to socialize too much, because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to hide whats going on in my head and I don’t want to draw attention to myself for how shitty I’ve been feeling. I know isolating doesn’t help things, and its probably just a depressive episode, so I started cross-fit at the beginning of the month to try and help me get back more into the routine of exercising again to try and combat the depression. I know I need to start working out and running again, but I don’t have the motivation to do it on my own anymore, so I joined cross-fit since they offer classes every day and you sign up for them before hand and getting my moneys worth helps as a motivator to go. I still drag my ass to derby too, but I’ve been pretty closed off with everyone there and haven’t had many ups recently. 
We had a roller derby tournament on the 14th and 15th. The first day of the tournament I actually had a lot of fun and remembered why I fell in love with derby to begin with. It was a good day all around, and I was in a really good mood too. I found out before game one that I was going to be one of the constants on the track (vs rotating in). It was a huge confidence boost for me, as I have always been a “rotator.” I have worked so hard and have come so far in the last year, and I felt like I played my heart out. We won both games. Derby was fun. I was really pumped up, and really happy about it. I hurt my hand at the end of the second game, but the rest of the day couldn't have gotten any better. for a little while, I was able to escape the dark cloud I live in these days. I got to enjoy it. I considered going into urgent care Saturday night after I hurt my hand, but I was afraid i was just making a big deal out of nothing just to get attention. I iced and took ibuprofen instead, and taped it for Sunday's games and tried not to draw attention to it. But day 2 of the tournament was the complete opposite for me from the day before. I got told that morning that I would go back to being a rotator for our line, and it completely crushed my soul and my confidence and my excitement for the day right away. several other things on top of that made it a really bad day for me mentally. I was being a poor sport about doing what was best for the team and was acting like an entitled spoiled brat. I just couldn’t understand what I did wrong on Saturday that made me get dropped down again, I thought I had played really well the day before but obviously I hadn’t. and while my fingers were taped I hadn’t said anything about my hand hurting (even though I no longer had separate knuckles because of the swelling and it ached like a mother fucker), so it wasn’t like I was bumped down because of that. And then even when I did get to play, Bull was acting really frustrated with me on the track which made me shut down even further. I assumed she was frustrated with me because I was playing poorly and kept making mistakes and getting stupid penalties. I was seriously afraid I was going to start to cry on the bench at one point. I didn’t handle any of it well whatsoever. At one point bull even argued with one of the bench coaches that I wasn’t supposed to be going on the track next even though Georgia had wanted to sit one so I was going to go in for her. but with the big deal bull made Georgia said she’d go in. When I skated away to the other end of the bench bull went to say something to me, but i stopped her and just said ”bull, I love you, but right now I can’t talk to you. I need to calm down.” She looked really pissed but skated away. I went up to her at halftime a few minutes later and she said not to take it personally, that she just wanted to make sure that Georgia got equal playing time, which was annoying coming from her since she was a constant on the track. She also said she was frustrated with the refs and the bench coach and not me, but she still didn’t change her attitude towards me. I tried to be a positive force on the bench, but I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be at the tournament even. We ended up winning all 4 games and the tournament, but I just wanted to die. I wanted to quit derby, even though i had just been reminded the day before how much I love playing. I was so down that I even called my mom on the way back and told her how bummed out and down I had been about having to sit and that it had crushed my confidence, but she made some comment like “well thats how it is” and “there’s no I in team”, and basically told me I shouldn’t be feeling that and how I should just be happy for the team and that we won. It just made it all worse, and I don’t know why I even tried reaching out to her. I guess probably because I didn’t have anyone else. I couldn’t stop thinking that I’m just overreacting anyways, its probably all in my head and I’m probably just being really dramatic and making a big deal out of nothing, and letting it get to me too much. And I shouldn’t have let myself get excited and proud of myself to begin with for it. I ended up cutting that night. After realizing how badly I fucked up again I got even more upset, and I called summit stone. The call didn’t help a ton, but it helped enough. She calmed me down some about feeling so  horrible for letting you down and told me to give myself some credit for wanting to cut so badly for the last month and only slipping up twice. It didn’t really help with fearing your reaction and how bad I feel about letting you down, or the guilt and shame of fucking up yet again, but at least I didn’t cut again that night and I haven’t cut since. She kept trying to remind me that I’m doing the best I can right now, but all I can think of is that either my best is not enough or I should’ve done better and worked harder and I’m not doing enough. Either way, I still feel like shit about it. But I do want you to know that the main thing that stopped me from continuing and got me to call at all was realizing how disappointed you’d be, and hearing your voice in my head saying “I can’t work with you if you’re going to hurt yourself”.  I'm really sorry, and I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses for what happened and why I slipped up, because there’s no real excuse. I’ve really been dreading how disappointed and mad you’re going to be with me, and I’m really praying that you aren't going to fire me as a client. Especially because I avoided it with jeff both times when I really shouldn’t have. I just didn’t want it to be an attention seeking behavior and I didn’t want it to become a big deal, because I had the feeling it would’ve been. but now I just realized that bringing it up only with you could be considered attention seeking too. god damn it. I’ve been trying so hard not to do things that might be attention seeking, but it just keeps backfiring. 
It turned out I broke my hand during our second bout on saturday and my fear of making it a big deal was bad, and turned out to almost make it worse. Monday morning my hand was still really swollen and achey, and eventually I decided to go in after my equine surgical anatomy rotation in the morning much due to the urging of holly who was my lab partner and saw how swollen it was. I went to CSU’s health center and got x rays, and the doctor said that I had an avulsion fracture. he sent me to PT to get a splint and to make an appointment with the hand surgeon at CSU to make sure it wouldn’t require surgery, but the PT was in disagreement that it was a fracture. The radiologist also said it wasn’t a fracture, but the doctor was convinced. Nearly 4 hours later they sent me home saying it wasn’t a fracture and just had me tape my fingers together. they said that they’d have the hand surgeon look at the rads when he was there Wednesday to double check. I got the rads on a CD and was looking at them at work Monday night to try and figure out what the dispute was about. I thought i saw a fracture, but I also wasn’t sure if I was seeing it just because I almost wanted it to be broken. like something deep inside was really disappointed when the radiologist said it wasn’t fractured, and I hate so much that I had that feeling. It just didn’t feel like how much it was bugging me was justified unless it was broken. Colton also agreed it was fractured, but I didn't go back in because I didn't want to make a big deal of it, and I hated that I had the feeling of satisfaction I got from it being broken. then on tuesday I got a call from the doctor who said he got a second opinion on the rads, and the other radiologist agreed with him that it was a fracture, but I could just stay with it taped until I met with the hand surgeon, but if I really wanted to I could come get a splint. Anyone who's in medicine knows that with any type of fracture you need to stabilize the joint above and below, but I didn't want to give  myself the satisfaction of a splint drawing attention to it so I just left it taped. But by Thursday morning my hand was throbbing so badly in class that i could barely function, so I went back to the doctor to get a real splint for it. I went to American family associates instead of CSU though, because Monday reminded me why I don't go to the CSU medical center. The doctor I saw there looked at the rads and was obviously horrified that it was even a question it was fractured to begin with, and that they only had me buddy taping it to the finger next to it. I felt really validated that I wasn't just being a weenie about it, and realized later that was satisfying the attention seeking part of me and I while it felt good to be validated I also hated myself for how good it felt that she was validating how much it was hurting me, and I hate mself even more for the surge of appreciation and satisfaction when she said ‘you poor thing’. She also had me get an appointment with the hand surgeon at the orthopedic center of the rockies for the next day because she was concerned I had done further damage by not being in the splint. I went to the hand surgeon friday, and was told that while there’s joint involvement the fracture is stable and it shouldn’t require surgery, and i was given a different brace, which he said i can skate in. i have a recheck in about 3 weeks. So basically the entire thing was a shitshow and me trying not to make a big deal of things backfired and made it even more of a big deal, and resulted in me probably getting more attention than I would have had I just gone into urgent care on saturday night. I don’t know how to balance my attempts to not be attention seeking vs making sure i get attention for things that require it.   
I’ve had this huge fear that you would decide while you were gone that you wanted to be just be done with me and tell me to find someone else to work with. After all we’ve been through I know its irrational, but the fear was still there, and now I gave you yet another reason to get rid of me by messing up and cutting. I think its important that you know that I’m terrified of letting you down. Maybe the fear is good, because for the most part it keeps me from self destructing because I’m so afraid of losing this relationship. I guess the thing is I’m trying so hard to do it all and I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted from it, but at the same time i feel like the effort I’m putting in isn’t enough. I’m so afraid of letting you down, especially because you’ve given me so many chances to get my shit together, especially after the last time I fucked up and lied. I’m always so afraid that if I fuck up in any way you’re going to leave me. I’m afraid that eventually you’re going to say that i’m not worth the trouble, that you’re going to decide that I’m too fucked up and demented and attention seeking and tell me I need to start seeing someone else and that you won’t work with me anymore. I keep fucking up and I’m so fucking scared that you’re going to leave because of it, and I guess you being gone has magnified that fear. I feel like the only reason I have held it together as much as I did was because I don’t want to hear the disappointment in your voice or have your be mad at me when you get back. I really wanted you to be happy with me for how I handled everything with you being gone, most nights the only thing that kept me from doing something stupid was the fear of how you’d react when I had to tell you about it. I’m pretty sure you have become my wise mind, because I kept trying to figure out what you would say to me or how you would react if I chose to do something. But there are some times that I still have barely been holding it together. I feel like I handled you being gone really poorly. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I could actually talk to someone without being afraid that I’m just being attention seeking, and I really tried to do that with Jeff, but there were some things that I was too afraid to go into. Mainly, how hopeless and bland life seems and the fact that there was one night that literally the only reason that kept me from it was the fact that it would be a really shitty thing for you to come back from your honeymoon to. I need to be able to talk about it but i’m afraid to talk to anyone about it because I don’t want people to overreact and make it a big deal and land up in the ER or at mountain crest, but sometimes I wonder if I really should end up there. Like during the last part of our session and after I left Jeff’s office this last tuesday, I wanted nothing more than to just die, but I didn’t feel safe telling him that because I didn't want to get sent to the ER. I sort of hinted at it during session, but I didn’t directly bring it up. And the problem was I just really wanted to talk to you, because it feels like the only reason I’m even trying anymore is because I don't want to let you down. I have been struggling a lot while you were gone, and I'm really really sorry for disappointing you and fucking up so much, and all I can do is beg you not to fire me. I know that you being back isn't just going to magically make everything all better, but at least I you know me and understand and can explain to me what the fuck is going on in my head and help me make sense of things. And I trust you and I know I can talk to about anything now, even if sometimes it takes me awhile to convince myself to get the words out. This last month has made me realize even more how much it helps me to come in and be held accountable and to be able to talk about everything, and feeling safe in doing so. I don’t feel so alone with it all when you’re here. I guess I hadn’t realized before you left that it was possible to feel more alone than I already did, but apparently it is. and all of this has made me realize how much our relationship means to me, which is really scary for me to admit to you. When it comes to people I feel like I can 100% go to with anything and truly trust with my life, you’re all I have. and its scary to realize that I depend on you this much. I still don’t know if it’s just Effy trying to show you how much I think I need you, or if this is actually how much I need you. I hope your wedding was everything you imagined it would be and that you hand an absolutely amazing trip,. and I’m really glad and relieved that you’re back. I've missed you so much.
0 notes